


With this Ring,  I Thee Haunt

by almina



Category: Ripper Street
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-17 06:44:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15455616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/almina/pseuds/almina
Summary: Death does not end Jackson's attachment to Reid





	With this Ring,  I Thee Haunt

About being dead, it's not as bad as I expected. I can do a little in the physical world I have pretty much vacated. Dogs and cats growl at me proving I still have a presence Sometimes I roll pencils off desks just to annoy people, particularly Artherton. I attended the birth of Mathilda's child to be sure the midwife didn't do something stupid.

When first I died. I was so cold. That river took all the warmth in my marrow as well as my life. All I could think of was how much I wanted to be sitting next to a roaring fire with Reid. I did just that, showing up in his house before he knew of my death. The housekeeper had made the fire. I sat in one of the chairs before the fireplace. My heart leapt when Reid came home. He hung up his coat and hat, poured himself brandy and sat down heavily in the chair opposite mine. He drinks more than he used to.

If you're curious, yes ghosts eat and drink. Drink - I am glad about that, Eternity without getting drunk now and then, well that would be a very long eternity, but not to worry about being stuck here forever. Some of the people I know, particularly the soldiers who died so damn young, they go back , born into new bodies. Full of bright hope, and they assure all their friends on this side, that they have learned the pertinent lessons. I want to shake them and warn them like some tiresome graybeard, 'find a way to serve your country and your conscience without going into battle, without killing. That preys on you.' 

Reid, a grandpapa now is still very young. He will never get past that. I watch him read, his mouth open a little in wonder. I am ether. He is flesh, very pleasing flesh, I cannot look at him without thinking that..

Being incorporeal, I intrude where I could not in my human form. Carnality persists. Reid is in bed, not quite asleep but beginning to dream. I touch. I kiss. I taste. He does not feel my weight, but next day he blushes when he remembers his dreams of us together.. He wakes with the bedding sticky in a way it has not been since he was a very young man. 

The day he received the letter informing him of my death, I watched him put the ring in a drawer where he kept Mathilda's baby incisor wrapped in Emily's lace handkerchief. He sat hard on the bed making it sag and creak. He stared into the darkness. When finally he closed his eyes and slept I took the ring from the drawer and placed it on his finger.

"With this ring, I thee haunt."

Reid, I wish I could tell you about the people here. Bennett is well and actually happy. Fred Best sends his best. He says I should write you a letter since I have so much more to say than I can possibly transmit to you by brute telepathy. He says writing letters sent with bewildering postmarks is how he twists the minds of people about whom he knows so much. Part of his journalist's credo of afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted. By the way, he concedes he should be beyond petty human vindictiveness by now, but he would have me thank you for leaving Theodore Swift in that cell to meditate upon his many sins. Caitlin says that going to the gallows has in no way expiated her sins; she has taken it into her pretty head to watch over the relations of those who died in the train crash. Something surprised me when I saw her She has not chosen to return to her youth as do most women when they cross over, their figures trim again, no gray hair. There is a sweet crumple of smile lines by her eyes, and lines on her forehead as if she is always raising her eyebrows in happy surprise. What a beautiful old woman she would have made.

Reid I know you will stay in Whitechapel. You will haunt this place. That won't happen just yet. You will live to see the shitstorm that's coming in Europe. I thought the war of the Rebellion was bad, the cruelty, the putrefaction of the so called glorious battlefields. But the great war that's coming, Lord help you.. I watch over Connor. I swear if I see a war coming my boy's way, I will injure him in such a way that he is deemed unfit for service but leaves him sound enough for a useful and happy life.. 

I will watch over you too, dear Reid. But a devoted ghost is not enough for a living man. I hope to see you remarry. I will nudge ladies in your direction, women full of heart and brains, like Mimi. You are too alone.


End file.
